Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa [Photo :the-star.co.ke]
Safaricom has reported a 12.1 percent growth in its half financial year results ending 30th September 2021 from 33.07 billion to 37.1 billion shillings.
Safaricom’s half-year net profit to September rose 12.1 percent to Sh37.05 billion with M-Pesa revenues driving the rebound on account of end to free State-backed transactions to support customers during the Covid-19 period.
The group’s profit before tax for the period grew by 22.2 percent from 44.8 billion to 54.7 billion shillings.
Safaricom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Peter Ndegwa, says that the growth was attributed to the strategy employed by the firm during the COVID-19 pandemic period that strived to put customers’ needs first.
“Despite the past year being one with far-reaching changes and extraordinary circumstances given the pandemic, we are encouraged by the business resilience and recovery trajectory marked by a return to near normalcy. We are well-positioned to support our customers and provide technology solutions as we turn the business into a purpose-led technology organization,” said Ndegwa.
The results, covering six months from April to September 2021, also saw voice and messaging revenue increase in the period that coincided with the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions.
M-Pesa revenue jumped by 45.8 percent or Sh16.4 billion, to Sh52.3 supported by the return to charging of transactions below Sh1,000 in January and improved business activity contributing to a 16.9 percent jump in service revenue to Sh138.4 billion.
Over the same period, the value of M-Pesa transactions grew from 9 trillion to 13.7 trillion shillings, and total revenue grew 45.8 percent now accounting for 37.8 percent of service revenue, due to return to charging of previously zero-rated transactions.
Service revenue rose by 16.9 percent to Shs 138.4 billion in the results covering six months from April to September 2021.
“The growth in free cash flow is because we continue to grow our customer base through great value propositions, and this has further led to the growth in our one-month active customers from 30.21 million to 31.75 million,” Dilip Pal, the firm Chief Finance Officer said.
On the other hand, chargeable transactions per customer grew 91.9 percent to 18.1 transactions from 9.4 transactions in a similar period last year.
The group further revealed that the M-Pesa app launched in July this year had so far recorded 3.9million downloads and two million active customers since launch.